LHC: FAQ

Update: Physics World spreads a rumor about the first proton beams to be injected on August 9th into parts of the tunnel and on September 2nd-3rd to the whole ring.

Original text from July 28th: Martin Coles at The (Montreal) Gazette wrote a couple of excellent articles about the Large Hadron Collider. Click at the following:

Frequently asked questions (illuminating, a lot of understandable numbers!)
Deep thinking (from Galileo to the LHC, a story)
In their realm, outside Canada (Montrealers at CERN)

For a photographer and a journalist, these sensible articles are extraordinary and deserve an explanation. The main explanation is probably that Martin Coles has studied math and philosophy in Cambridge, Old England, so he is not quite just a photographer or a journalist. ;-)

Incidentally, all eight sectors of the LHC except for "78" are already below the temperature of 5 K, usually close to the final 1.9 K. Only the "78" sector is at 15 K in average (update, July 30th: close to 5 K, too). It should be cooled down soon.



I don't really like rap but if you do, play the video above. Ms Alpinekat explains the basic purpose of the four LHC experiments very well.




Hat tip: Tommaso Dorigo.